The traveler
by Niliathiel
Summary: One of my first short stories. Hope you read it *g*


Author´s note: Hallo folks! Well, I don´t know if you will like it, but I wrote that short story some days ago and wonderes what you people would think about it.... It is written from the point of view of a 25 year old woman and I must say here that I take no guarantee for any dates, okay? So, see if you like it and let me know, will you?  
The traveler  
  
The world changes. It changes so fast that we almost have to run not to stay behind. The 21st century is full of adventure and exciting inventions.. but often there are these short moments, which first seem meaningless, but which change the course of your life. I am 25 and a student on a very good university somewhere on the eastern US coast. I don´t want to tell the name of my university, for the project, I have a part in, is top secret. I had luck and a stipendium to join it. I grew up at the borders of a small city in New mexico. My parents had a ranch. Since I can remember, I had that strange skar on my right knee, but I could not remember were it came from. My mum thought it might have been the result of one of my countless crashs off trees and horses, but even she did not exactly know. As we thought the project of my university was unique. The biggest part of the world´s population would never have believed what we had managed to do here. I´m studying history- really! For I travel through the time. I´m the youngest time traveler in history and I can very well remember my very first journey, which is now one year ago- and I am sure I will alwas remember this. My first journey took me into the England of the year 1913- to be precisely: it was the 27th October of the year. Our project follows strict rules, rules, you have to stick to as a time traveler. I was not looking unusual among those people, my dressing and my behavior was like theirs- as a result of long scientific researchery- but nevertheless there are basic rules and the most important one of those says: "Never interact! Never try to change the past, no matter what happens, for it already has happend; and even if you don´t think it is possible: the smallest intermingling into the structure of time might cause a completely different development of history... I think everyone of us has now and then seen movies with a titlehero saving the world. Spectacular with a lot of smash and boom. What I experienced was different. I never told anyone before, but what I´m writing down right now is the truth. I have saved a world, too. By not caring about the most important rule for time travelers.... I got mixed with the crowd, they did not care about me, when I climbed into that train on this rainy 27th October of 1913, which left London station two minutes later. I walked through the train, searching for an empty compartment, so that I could take some notes without anyone recognizing. But I didn´t stay alone for long. About 10 minutes later the door opened and a young man looked in. He looked around and asked me if he was allowed to sit down. I smiled at him and said yes, then I put my notebook back into my bag and looked out of the window. Outside the landskape flew by- more slowly than I was used to. But no matter if the young man thought I was calm, inside of myself I was excited. We didn´t talk to each other. After he had been browsing and skribbeling through his notebook for about half an hour he put it away and put his bag under his neck like a pillow. Then he closed his eyes to sleep and I got the chance to have a closer look at the young man. He was about 20 years old and had dark, almost black hair. In some way he seemed familiar to me, though I couldn´t tell why and while he was asleep I was thinking about all those faces I had seen, but when he woke up I still didn´t know. But then we did start to talk. Nothing personal. Just some small talk about the weather and stuff like that. He spoke the dialectfree English of the upper class, as I recognized. Just too soon the journey was over and I started to grab for my jacket and opened the door of the compartment two minutes before the train halted. The young traveler got up, too and when I turned around giving him a bewildered look, he just said that he had to get out here, too. So we said goodbye without even knowing the other´s name and I´m sure that I had forgotten his voice and his face soon if not had happened what happened some minutes ago- I had forgotten his face, just like I have forgotten so many I have seen in my young life. I jumped out of the train. It was still quite early in the morning but the station was almost empty. Behind me the young man jumped out too and walked into the direction of the exit. I had the same way and followed him without thinking or heeding him any longer. But suddenly things started to happen... First there was a man coming out of a dark corner near the wall First I did not recognize him but suddenly he ran towards the young man I had met and pushed him in the side so hard that both men were knocked to the floor, while the stranger tried to grab for the man´s bag. My traveler friend got to his feet again and took back his bag but the attacker reacted with the speed of a cat and in the next moment he had pushed the darkhaired man so hard that he stumbled. I was not far away from these two when I saw the thief running away with the bag while the boy was losing his balance. In that moment thousands of thoughts were rushing through my head for example the fact that the young traveler would soon completely lose his balance to fall onto the railway tracks behind him, the other idea was that in that very moment the train I could see rushing towards him would have reached him and then... I just started to run. Not thinking about the "rule" never to interact into the past: I just ran, ran, and the split of a second before the young man was taken and killed by the rushing train I got hold of him and pulled him back with all the power I could effort. He crashed onto the floor and me too. The train rushed over and he made a frightened gasp. I struggeled to my feet again and gave him my hand so he got stand up, too. "Are you injured? Is everything all right?" I asked. He looked at me, his eyes still widened from the shock and just nodded. Then he looked around. His bag was lying in some distance. The thief must have thrown it away when he saw, what happened. The attacker himself was gone. There was nobody to be seen and slowly I walked over to the bag and collected the things which had fallen out, after the thief had broken it. The notebook. A purse, a passport. He joined me to help. Suddenly I got afraid and my heart started beating fast. What had I done? I had saved this young man´s life, yes, but how could I know who he was? I didn´t even know his name! History had decided that he had to die on this very day and I had changed the course of time. I began to feel sick, when I realized how terrible the concequences to this might be. Would he be a normal man in later years? Maybe the inventor of a terrible bomb? The grandfather of a dictator who would never have born if I had not pulled that man back? All those thoughts were swirling through my head when I handed the notebook back to him... a small book, which looked as if he had used it for countless times. On the back I saw that he had written something in clean and clear letters. Four letters written in black ink with a nice handwriting, his initials, as it seemed: JRRT. "You have saved my life!" he suddenly said. "And I even don´t know your name!" I looked up and straight into his eyes, trying not to let him feel that I was starting to realize, trying to keep away what I just started to know... I told him my name. My first name, nothing more, for everything that goes further is prohibited by the rules. He gave me his hand. "My name is Tolkien", he simply said. On that day I have saved an entire world. A world that would never have been created, if I hadn´t overthrown the rules to save this young man´s life. If I had not done, what I have done. And now I know, where the scar came from, that I had had for my whole life but never knew, where I got it: two hours later, when I climbed out of the time machine I saw that there was blood on my knee. It seemed that I had hurt my knee with a little splinter of glass when I pulled him back from the speeding train. This splinter was taken away on the same day but a hundred years later by a doctor. What stayed was nothing more than a scar... 


End file.
